This genealogy back to Cerdic has often been
accepted as reliable. However, there are problems with accepting
the genealogy at face value. First and foremost is the fact that
none of the links between Ecgbeorht and Cerdic is verified in
contemporary sources. Thus, it seems impossible to confirm the
genealogy in any realistic sense. Second, and related to this,
there is the fact that for eight generations the supposed
ancestors of Ecgbeorht fail to appear on the standard list of
West Saxon kings, Ceawlin being the most recent king on the list
who appears as an ancestor of Ecgbeorht, nine generations back.
However, this problem is mitigated to a significant extent by the
appearance of king Ine of Wessex as a brother of Ingild, the
supposed great-great-grandfather of Ecgbeorht. Ine's father
Coenred, who appears as king of Wessex confirming two South Saxon
charters (but is not on the king list), and is called a subregulus
by John of Worcester, seems to be a well enough documented
individual, even if no contemporary source confirms that he had a
son named Ingild [Cart. Sax. 1: 113 (#78), 211 (#144); John
Worc., 1: 272]. Third, the genealogical sources on the early
dynasty of Wessex are extremely contradictory, and seem
impossible to reconcile [see, e.g., Plummer, in ASC 2: 1-2; Kirby
(1965)]. In particular, no confidence at all can be placed in the
generations prior to Ceawlin, and as noted above, the genealogies
do not even agree on the number of generations between Ceawlin
and Ine.

Ealhmund of Kent and Ecgbeorht of
Wessex

The orthodox West Saxon genealogy, as indicated
above, states that Ecgbeorht of Wessex was the son of an
Ealhmund. It has commonly been concluded that the Ealhmund who
was father of Ecgbeorht was the same person as king Ealhmund of
Kent, who appears in the charter of 784 (see above), but the
identification does not appear in any early source, and it has
not been accepted by some. For example, Barbara Yorke stated that
it was doubtful that Ealhmund of Kent should be identified with
the same-named father of Ecgbeorht of Wessex [Yorke (1983), 13].
Nevertheless, even though the explicit attribution of Ealhmund of
Kent as Ecgbeorht's father does not appear until some late
additions to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ["Hic
tunc temporis fuit in Cantia rex Ealhmundus. Þes Ealhmund cing
was Egberhts fæder. Egberht was Aðulfes fæder."
ASC(F) s.a. 784 (late hand); "(filius Ealhmundi regis)"
ASC(F) s.a. 800 (in reference to Ecgbeorht)], there are good
reasons for believing that Ecgbeorht had Kentish connections,
which seem to confirm these late traditions that Ecgbeorht of
Wessex was a son of Ealhmund of Kent.

Direct evidence that Ecgbeorht had at least one
relative who had previously reigned in Kent is provided by an
entry of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year
"823" (actually 825, because of the two year
dislocation of this part of the chronicle) ["... &
Cantware him to cirdon, & Suþrige, & Suþ Seaxe, &
East Seaxe, þy hie from his mægum ær mid unryhte anidde
wæren; ..." ASC(A) s.a. 823 (=825) (and similarly in
other manuscripts of the ASC) (Translation: "... and the
inhabitants of Kent turned to him - and the Surrey men and South
Saxons and East Saxons - because earlier they were wrongly forced
away from his relatives." ASC(Eng.), 60)]. Although
Surrey, Sussex, and Essex are also mentioned, the statement
appears to be primarily concerned with Kent, the main subject of
the sentence. A similar statement appears in John of Worcester's
history, no doubt based on a version of the Chronicle
["Posthæc Cantuarienses, Suthregienses, Australes
Saxones, Orientales Saxones, sponte se regi dederunt Ecgbrihto;
ex cujus propinquorum manibus prius extorti, extraneorum regum
ditioni per aliquot annorum curricula inviti sunt subacti."
John Worc., s.a. 823 (1: 66)]. The most interesting additional
detail occurs in the account of Henry of Huntingdon, who calls
"Pren" (evidently Eadbeorht Præn, see below) the
"cognatus" (relative) of Ecgbeorht ["Tunc
ergo populos Cantiæ, et Sudriæ, et Sudsexe, et Estsexe rex
Egbricht in dominium suscepit, quos prius cognatus suus Pren
injuste amiserat." Hen. Hunt. iv, 29 (p. 132)]. It is
not clear that Henry had additional information that Ecgbeorht
and Eadbeorht Præn were related. He could have just assumed that
the chronicle entry of "823" was referring to the
dethronement of Eadbeorht. John Earle had a radically different
suggestion for the translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
entry for 823(=825) ["... and the Kentish men threw off
their allegiance to him [Baldred], as did Surrey, Sussex, and
Essex, on the ground that they had originally been unjustly
subdued by his family." ASC (Earle), 298-9]. This can
only be right if the Latin chroniclers mistranslated the passage,
and it does not seem to have been accepted by any later authors.
Thus, the evidence that Ecgbeorht of Wessex was a son of Ealhmund
of Kent is good.

The parentage of Ealhmund

The most obvious parentage for Ealhmund would
be to accept the orthodox genealogy as it stands:

Possible father: Eaba/Eafa, grandnephew
of Ine, king of Wessex.

Eaba does not appear in any source outside the
West Saxon genealogy, and that is one reason for the doubt that
has sometimes been expressed regarding the name. Assuming that
this was the correct name of Ealhmund's father, no dates or
places are known for him, beyond what might be naturally guessed
for the father of a king who was reigning in Kent in 784. It
would help to know when the genealogy was written, but all we
know is that it existed in written form by the end of the ninth
century. The spelling "Eaba" in some manuscripts (as
opposed to the later "Eafa") has led to the suggestion
that this part of the genealogy has an early (perhaps even eighth
century) origin, but Sisam pointed out an example where b
for f occurs in a name in a charter of 873 [Sisam
(1953), 153-4; see Cart. Sax. 2: 153-5 (#536), where "Liaba"
is written for the name "Leofa"], so a late
ninth century composition of the genealogy is not ruled out.
Nevertheless, the chances would seem good that the name of
Ecgbeorht's grandfather is correctly given in the genealogy.

Although the orthodox genealogy traces
Ecgbeorht and Ealhmund from the West Saxon dynasty of Cerdic,
connections with the Kentish royal dynasty have also been
suggested. In addition to the fact that Ealhmund ruled as king of
Kent, and the apparent Kentish connections of Ecgbeorht noted
above, it has also been noted that name of Ecgbeorht had been
borne by two Kentish kings, Ecgbeorht I (664-673) and Ecgbeorht
II (fl. 765-779) [see Searle (1899), 263, 266]. Also, one of the
grandsons of Ecgbeorht of Wessex was named Æthelbeorht, a name
which was also borne by more than one Kentish king. Both the
Kentish dynasty and the dynasty of Ecgbeorht's descendants gave
most of their members names beginning with vowels.

One possibility is that Ealhmund married a
member of the Kentish dynasty:

This conjecture was made by David H. Kelley [as
noted in Wagner (1975), 53]. However, even if the general idea is
correct, there is no reason to insist on this specific link. A
connection to the Kentish dynasty could just as easily come
through the mother of Ealhmund, or via a daughter of some other
Kentish king. There were quite a few kings who ruled in Kent
during this unsettled era (sometimes more than one at the same
time), usually of obscure lineage who may not have been related
to the "main" dynasty of Kentish kings which claimed
descent from the legendary Hengest and was descended from
Æthelbeorht I (d. 616), the earliest known Christian Anglo-Saxon
king. Thus, Ealhmund may have been a West Saxon adventurer
unrelated to the Kentish royal family who just happened to
briefly obtain a throne for himself.

In contradiction to this scenario, some authors
have suggested that Ecgbeorht and Ealhmund were patrilineally
related to the Kentish dynasty, and that the West Saxon genealogy
was a complete fabrication:

This scenario was argued by Henry Howorth, who
implied that the orthodox genealogy had been fabricated in the
time of Ælfred the Great by Ælfred's biographer Asser [Howorth
(1900), 67]. Anton Scharer has also suggested that Ecgbeorht was
descended from the Kentish kings, and that he was perhaps
descended from the line of Cerdic only through his mother
[Scharer (1996), 184]. Both authors mention the annal of 823, and
the onomastic evidence of the name Ecgbeorht, in support of the
theory. Neither attempts to conjecture the exact nature of the
hypothesized link to the Kentish kings.

While a connection to Kentish dynasty through a
female line is consistent with the orthodox genealogy, any
suggestion that Ecgbeorht was a patrilineal descendant of the
Kentish dynasty necessarily implies that the orthodox genealogy
is false. That in turn would suggest that a true Kentish
genealogy was suppressed in favor of a false West Saxon one, and
we should then ask about the motives and timing of such a
fabrication. Obviously, there could be political motives for
fabricating a genealogy. However, Howorth's statement that
"Asser had to construct a story which should do due honour
to the predecessors of his patron, ..." [Howorth (1900), 67]
runs into problems if we consider what would be lost by giving up
the Kentish descent. The Kentish dynasty had a descent in the
direct male line from king Æthelbeorht I of Kent (d. 616). the
first known Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity, whose
descent in turn was said to derive from Hengest, the legendary
first Anglo-Saxon invader of England. Would Ælfred really have
abandoned such an illustrious descent if it were true? He had
been preceded on the throne of Wessex by his grandfather, his
father, and three brothers. During his time, only the very oldest
would have remembered a time when someone other than a close
relative of Ælfred had sat on the throne of Wessex. Both before
and after his reign, there is no evidence for a challenge for the
throne that came from outside of close relatives who would have
had the same claim to the throne, and the claim of his family to
rule Wessex seems to have been secure. By Ælfred's time, the
dynasty was clearly looking beyond Wessex toward the day when
they might rule all of England. For this reason, it is difficult
to believe that in the late ninth century they would have set
aside a supposedly genuine descent from the first Anglo-Saxon
invader and first Christian king in favor of a less impressive
and supposedly false West Saxon claim. Here, we make the obvious
assumption that, all else being equal, a true claim would be
strongly preferred to a false one.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to be certain.
There may have been some sort of unknown political pressure in
the late ninth century which demanded that Ælfred bolster a
specifically West Saxon claim to the throne. However, the
existence of such pressure seems much more plausible during the
reign of Ecgbeorht. His immediate ancestors did not occupy the
throne of Wessex, and if there was any pressure to supply a
genealogical claim, it was more likely to come during his time
than later. However, if the pedigree was composed during his
time, his immediate ancestors would presumably have been well
known, and the information would be more likely to be accurate.

Another possibility can be suggested. Does the
pedigree of Ecgbeorht hide a female name?:

Conjectured mother (existence
speculative): Eabe, daughter of Eoppa.

I first developed this hypothesis when my
initial search for people named Eaba/Eafa in the Anglo-Saxon
charters turned up only female candidates [Baldwin (2003); "Æbbæ
abbatissæ ... Eabbæ abbatissæ" Cart. Sax. 1: 122
(#86); "Eabbe abbatissæ" ibid., 1: 140 (#96);
"Eafe abbatissa" ibid., 2: 151 (#535)]. The
theory is that it is possible that Ecgbeorht had a patrilineal
descent from the kings of Kent and yet the orthodox genealogy
might be approximately true, in that a female descent is hidden
by a supposedly male one. For another likely female descent that
was hidden in a similar way, see Alex Woolf's very probable
suggestion that Coenwulf of Mercia was a descendant of Coenwealh
of Wessex [Woolf (1998), 151-2, 166]. If such a genealogy was
composed during the time of Ecgbeorht, it could have become set
in stone by the time of Ælfred. This hypothesis is only one
possibility among many.

Among Ealhmund's possible Kentish relations,
one is named as a relative of Ecgbeorht in a relatively early
source:

Bibliography

ASC = Charles Plummer, Two of the Saxon
Chronicles parallel, based on the earlier edition by John
Earle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-9). ASC(A) indicates the
"A" manuscript of the chronicle, and similarly for the
other manuscripts.

ASC (Earle) = John Earle, Two of the
Saxon Chronicles parallel (Oxford, 1865).